head to head · open source
caveman vs Aider
caveman has 116,900 GitHub stars, 6,789 forks, 155 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Aider has 49,910 stars, 5,128 forks, 1,860 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. caveman leads on adoption by 134% (116,900 vs 49,910 stars). caveman is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Aider is written in Python under Apache-2.0. caveman has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Aider 10%. caveman was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (anthropic), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| caveman | Aider | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 117K | ★ 50K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-05-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.8K | ⑂ 5.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick caveman if
- You weight community size — 117K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Aider if
- You want the Aider feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Aider fits your workflow better
About caveman
why use many token when few do trick Your AI coding agent bills by the word and writes like it knows that. Caveman make it stop. ▶️ ThePrimeagen reacts: "No way this actually works" 🏆 1 on GitHub Trending · July 2026 · 🥇 1 Repository of the Day on Trendshift · April 2026 1 on Hacker News · 904 points · 366 comments · 8 Product of the Day on Product Hunt 📄 Cited in CAVEWOMAN , an Adobe Research paper that measured caveman style output cutting cost 1.4 to 2.4×, up to 3× · 🧪 Tested by JetBrains on 86 real coding tasks: "costs you nothing measurable in quality" ⚡ One command, no account, no API key. npx skills…
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About Aider
AI Pair Programming in Your Terminal Aider lets you pair program with LLMs to start a new project or build on your existing codebase. Features Cloud and local LLMs Aider works best with Claude 3.7 Sonnet, DeepSeek R1 & Chat V3, OpenAI o1, o3 mini & GPT 4o, but can connect to almost any LLM, including local models. Maps your codebase Aider makes a map of your entire codebase, which helps it work well in larger projects. 100+ code languages Aider works with most popular programming languages: python, javascript, rust, ruby, go, cpp, php, html, css, and dozens more. Git integration Aider automatically commits…
read the full Aider overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is caveman or Aider more popular?
caveman has 116,900 GitHub stars and Aider has 49,910. caveman has the larger community by that measure.
Are caveman and Aider free?
Both are open source. caveman is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Aider under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between caveman and Aider?
caveman is written in Go and Aider in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, caveman or Aider?
Choose caveman if you want the larger community (116,900 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Aider if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.